Williamk 


Eulogy  o^bhe  life  and  public  service 
Abraham  Lincoln 


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OF 

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OF  CALIFORNIA 

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EULOGY 


LIFE  AND  PUBLIC  SERVICES 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 


LATE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


DELIVERED   BY   PUBLIC    REQUEST,    IN 

CHRIST  M.  E.  CHURCH,  PITTSBURGH, 

THURSDAY,    JUNE   1,   1865. 

BY 

HON.   THOMAS  WILLIAMS. 


PITTSBURGH: 

PRINTED     BY    W.    S.     HAVEN,     CORNER     OP    WOOD     AND     THIRD     STREETS. 

1865. 


EULOGY 


ON      THE 


LIFE  AND  PUBLIC  SERVICES 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 


LATE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


DELIVERED   BY   PUBLIC    REQUEST,    IN 


CHRIST  M.  E.  CHURCH,  PITTSBURGH, 


THURSDAY,    JUNE    1,   1865. 


BY 

HON.   THOMAS   WILLIAMS. 


PITTSBUKGH: 

PRINTED     BY    W.    8.     HAVEN,     CORNER     OF     WOOD     AND     THIRD     STREETS. 

1865. 


*  *  V 


»*• : ». 


WILUAM  VYUB*  UBBAftt 

SANTA  BARBARA,  OOU&Qt 

^67^, 


MAYOR'S  OFFICE, 
PITTSBURGH,  June  2,  1865. 


To  the  Hox.  THOMAS  WILLIAMS: 


Dear  Sir  —  At  a  recent  meeting,  held  by  a 

large  number  of  the  leading  and  influential  citizens  of  Pittsburgh  and  vicin- 
ity, a  resolution  was  unanimously  passed,  requesting  me,  as  Chairman,  to 
procure  from  you  a  copy  of  your  eloquent  and  truthful  Eulogy  of  the  late 
President  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Your  compliance  with  this  request  will  greatly  oblige 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

JAMES   LOWRY,  JR. 


PITTSBURGH,  June  2,  1865. 
HON.  JAMBS  LOWRY,  JR. 

Dear  Sir  —  In  accordance  with  the  request  of  the 

meeting  of  which  you  have  been  made  the  organ,  I  hand  you  for  publication 
a  copy  of  the  Eulogy  which  I  had  the  honor  to  pronounce  at  Christ  M.  E. 
Church,  on  the  evening  of  the  1st  instant. 

I  am  sorry  that  the  performance  is  not  more  worthy  of  the  theme  and  the 
occasion. 

Thanking  you,  however,  for  the  nattering  terms  in  which  you  have  been 
pleased  to  speak  of  it, 

I  am,  very  truly,  Yours, 

THOMAS   WILLIAMS. 


79059' 


EULOGY 


WE  meet  in*gloom.  But  yesterday  our  streets  were  jubilant,  and 
the  very  heavens  ablaze  with  the  bright  pomp  of  a  rejoicing  multi- 
tude. But  yesterday  our  temples  were  vocal  with  songs  of  raptur- 
ous thanksgiving  for  the  great  victories  that  had  been  vouchsafed 
to  our  arms.  To-day  no  jubilee  solicits  us.  No  loud  huzzas — no 
"aves  vehement" — no  hurrying  feet — no  hymns  of  triumph  salute 
our  ears.  It  is  the  hour  of  darkness,  as  these  sad  emblems  indicate. 
A  nation  mourns.  A  mighty  people  throngs  its  wide-spread  sanctu- 
aries, to  lament  its  martyred  Chief,  but  just  returned  from  the 
overthrow  of  the  armed  array  that  menaced  its  own  life,  to  die  in 
the  very  hour  of  his  triumph — in  the  fancied  security  of  its  own 
capital — under  the  blaze  of  a  thousand  lights,  and  a  thousand  ad- 
miring eyes — and  in  the  midst  of  the  brave  hearts  that  belted  him 
around,  and  would  have  spilled  their  life's  best  blood  to  shelter  him 
from  harm — and  to  die,  oh  God  of  Justice !  by  the  stealthy  and 
felonious  blow  of  an  assassin.  In  such  a  presence,  and  with  such 
surroundings,  the  chosen  Ruler  of  this  great  Republic — the  kind, 
the  generous,  the  parental  magistrate,  who  knew  no  resentments, 
and  had  never  done  aught  to  deserve  an  enemy — has  bowed  his 
venerable  head  upon  his  bosom,  and  laid  down  the  high  commission 
with  which  he  had  been  so  lately  reinvested  by  the  popular  acclaim. 
"Most  sacrilegious  murder  hath  broke  ope  the  temple  of  the  Lord's 
anointed,  and  stolen  out  the  life  of  the  building."  The  pulse  of 
the  world  has  stood  almost  suspended  by  the  earthquake  jar  that 
shook  its  continents  and  isles,  as  no  event  of  modern  times  has 
done.  A  multitudinous  people — "in  numbers  numberless"  almost 
as  the  stars  of  heaven — thrilled  with  horror,  and  smitten  dumb 
by  the  fearful  atrocity  which  flashed  upon  them,  unheralded  by 


any  note  of  warning,  over  the  electric  -wires,  have  uncovered  their 
heads  and  wept,  as  no  people  ever  wept  before,  as  the  funeral  cor- 
tege swept  by,  with  its  precious  but  unconscious  burthen,  over  moun- 
tain and  plain,  and  along  the  rivers  and  the  lakes,  in  its  long  and 
melancholy  journey  to  the  far  Western  home  which  he  was  to  see 
in  the  body  no  more.  The  earth  has  opened  to  receive  all  that  the 
nation  could  give  back  to  that  now  desolated  home,  and  we  are 
here  to-day,  by  the  appointment  of  his  successor,  to  bow  in  reveren- 
tial submission  and  acknowledgment  before  the  Hand  that  has 
smitten  us,  and  to  draw  such  consolations  as  are  possible,  from  the 
consideration  that  the  chastisements  of  God  are  sometimes  mercies 
in  disguise,  while  we  water  with  our  tears  the  fresh  grave  of  the 
heroic  martyr,  who  has  crowned  his  great  work  by  the  offering  of 
his  own  life  upon  the  same  altar  where  the  blood  of  so  many  vic- 
tims had  already  smoked  to  heaven. 

Yes !  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  is  no  more.  All  that  could  die  of  him 
who  has  defended  and  rebuilt  the  tottering  structure  of  our  fathers, 
has  passed  from  earthly  view,  by  a  transition  as  abrupt  as  his  who 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  Eternal  City,  and  then,  according  to  the 
legendary  epic  of  the  Roman  State,  was  wrapt  from  mortal  vision 
in  a  chariot  of  fire.  The  shadow  of  the  destroyer  has  mounted 
behind  the  trooper,  and  the  grim  spectre  of  the  grisly  king  followed 
close  upon  the  pageant  of  the  avenue.  The  wise  and  prudent  ruler 
who  was  commissioned  of  God  to  lead  this  people  through  the  fiery 
trials  from  which  they  have  just  emerged — the  chief  who  had  just 
been  lifted  on  their  bucklers  for  a  second  time  to  the  supreme  com- 
mand— the  idol  of  the  popular  heart,  who  had  so  recently  been 
crowned  anew  at  the  Capitol  with  the  symbols  of  a  nation's  power, 
the  insignia  of  a  nation's  trust,  and  the  rewards  of  a  nation's 
gratitude,  amidst  the  thundering  salvos  of  artillery,  and  the  re- 
sponsive voices  of  an  innumerable  throng,  has  ceased  to  listen  to 
the  applauding  shout,  and  passed  from  the  regards  of  men,  into 
the  serener  light  of  an  abode  beyond  the  stars,  where  the  banner 
of  war  is  furled,  and  the  hoarse  summons  of  the  trumpet,  and  the 
roll  of  the  stirring  drum,  no  longer  awaken  either  to  the  battle  or 
the  triumph. 

On  two  occasions  only  in  our  brief  but  eventful  history,  the  hand 
of  death  has  fallen  upon  the  head  of  this  great  Republic.  On 
both,  however,  it  descended  in  a  period  of  public  tranquility,  by 


the  quiet  and  gentle  ministration  of  nature,  without  shock  and 
without  disturbance.  The  fruit  fell  when  it  was  ripe,  and  the  nation 
grieved,  but  not  as  those  who  are  without  hope.  It  paused  but 
for  a  moment  to  cast  its  tribute  of  affection  on  the  tomb,  and  then 
hurried  onward  in  its  high  and  prosperous  career.  For  the  first 
time  now,  in  the  very  hurricane  of  civil  strife,  a  bloody  tragedy,  of 
fearful  aspect,  and  more  than  mediaeval  horror,  forestalling  the  dis- 
solving processes  that  are  interwoven  with  the  law  of  life,  has 
snatched  away  the  man  who,  above  all  others,  was  most  dear  to  us, 
almost  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  in  high  health,  and  in  the  very 
crisis  of  his  great  work,  when  the  regards  of  the  world  were  most 
intently  fixed  upon  him,  and  the  destinies  of  a  nation  were  trembling 
in  his  hands.  It  is  as  though  an  apparition  had  stalked,  in  the 
midst  of  our  rejoicings,  into  the  very  presence  of  the  festal  board, 
and  it  is  under  the  projecting  shadow  with  which  that  ghastly 
shape  has  darkened  the  whole  land  as  with  a  general  eclipse,  that 
I  am  asked  to  discourse  to  you  of  the  merits  and  services  of  the 
extraordinary  man,  who  has  thus  disappeared  from  amongst  us 
after  having  enacted  so  large  a  part  in  the  greatest  and  most  im- 
portant era  of  the  world's  history.  It  is  a  task  which  is  never 
easy  in  the  performance,  and  cannot  be  faithfully  executed  until 
the  lapse  of  years  shall  withdraw  the  observer  from  a  proximity 
that  is  always  unfavorable  to  the  clearest  vision,  and  the  work  is 
consigned  to  the  pen  of  impartial  history.  It  is  one,  however, 
which  I  have  not  felt  at  liberty  to  decline. 

Of  Abraham  Lincoln  there  is  little  to  be  said,  until  the  voice  of 
the  people  called  him  from  the  comparative  obscurity  of  a  provincial 
town  in  the  remote  West,  to  preside  over  the  destinies  of  this  Re- 
public. The  story  of  his  life,  antecedent  to  his  appearance  on  that 
broader  stage,  where  he  was  destined  to  command  more  of  the 
observation  of  the  world  than  any  other  man  either  of  ancient  or 
modern  times,  is  soon  told.  Born  in  a  frontier  settlement  in  Ken- 
tucky, of  humble  parentage,  and  with  no  prospective  inheritance 
but  that  of  the  coarsest  toil,  it  was  not  his  hard  fate  to  wear  out 
his  life  in  the  hopeless  struggle  for  success,  to  which  that  nativity 
would  have  consigned  him.  At  the  age  of  six  years,  his  parents, 
warned  by  no  vision,  but  by  the  stern  necessities  of  life,  removed 
from  the  house  of  bondage,  taking  the  young  child  with  them,  to 
grow  up  in  the  freer  air  of  that  great  Territory,  whose  fundamental 


8 

ordinance  had  insured  the  respectability  of  labor,  by  forbidding  any 
bondsman  from  ever  setting  his  foot  upon  its  soil.  There,  in  the 
vigorous  young  State  of  Indiana,  "without  even  the  aid  of  a  mother's 
care  beyond  his  infant  years,  he  shot  up — we  know  not  how — into 
the  lofty  stature  and  robust  manhood  which  have  since  become  so 
familiar  to  us  all,  diversifying  his  labors,  and  indulging  that  spirit 
of  adventure  that  is  so  common  to  the  pioneer,  by  embarking,  at 
the  age  of  nineteen  years,  as  a  working  hand,  at  the  scanty  wages 
of  ten  dollars  a  month,  on  one  of  those  primitive  flat-boats  on  which 
the  western  farmer  of  those  times  was  wont  to  launch  his  produce 
on  the  bosom  of  the  Ohio,  to  find  its  only  market  at  New  Orleans. 
At  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  without  any  better  prospects  in 
life,  and  inheriting  apparently  the  migratory  instincts  of  his  father, 
who  had  perhaps  grown  weary  of  his  Indiana  home,  he  plunged 
with  him  into  the  further  West,  and  sought  and  found  a  new  settle- 
ment on  an  unreclaimed  quarter-section  of  the  public  lands  in 
Central  Illinois.  That  he  must  have  shared  the  humble  labors  of 
that  parent  in  winning  his  new  acquisition  from  a  state  of  nature 
into  a  habitable  abode  for  man,  is  obvious  from  the  fact  that  so 
limited  an  area,  on  the  extremest  frontier  of  civilization,  could 
have  afforded  no  great  scope  for  employment  but  with  the  axe  or 
plow,  and  no  means  whatever  for  mental  culture  or  development, 
except  those  powers  of  thought  and  observation,  which  the  solitudes 
of  nature,  and  the  communion  of  the  forest  and  the  field,  have 
sometimes  awakened  in  those  gifted  spirits  that  seem  to  be  im- 
mediately inspired  of  God.  Within  a  year  or  two,  however,  the 
occurrence  of  what  was  called  the  "Black  Hawk  War,"  drew  him 
from  a  seclusion  which  must  have  been  extremely  irksome  to  a 
youth  of  lively  temperament,  and  overflowing  health,  by  offering 
the  temptation  which  the  pursuit  of  arms  almost  invariably  pre- 
sents to  the  young  and  ambitious  spirits  of  the  land.  He  enlisted 
in  a  company  of  volunteers,  who  forthwith  selected  him  as  their 
captain,  but  his  aspirations  for  military  renown  were  soon  cut  short 
by  the  unexpected  termination  of  the  war.  His  next  appearance 
is  as  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature  of  the  State,  to  which  he  was 
repeatedly  elected,  and  about  the  same  time  he  turned  his  attention 
to  the  study  of  the  law,  and  was  duly  admitted  to  the  Bar.  What 
preparation  he  may  have  made  for  this  transition  to  another  and  a 
higher  field  of  labor,  is  unknown  to  us.  He  has  the  credit  of  con- 


fessing,  with  that  simplicity  which  drew  from  him  the  acknowledg- 
ment that  he  had  never  read  the  works  of  the  great  master  of  the 
drama,  that  he  had  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  but  six  months' 
schooling  in  the  whole  course  of  his  life.  That  he  had  read  such 
books  as  were  accessible  to  him,  is  not  to  be  doubted.  Report  says 
that  he  had  picked  up  in  some  way  a  little  knowledge  of  surveying, 
which  may  have  served  to  train  and  discipline  his  reasoning  faculty, 
and  was,  as  will  be  remembered,  the  youthful  employment  of  the 
great  Washington  himself.  Beyond  this,  however,  little  was  re- 
quired in  the  infant  condition  of  a  frontier  settlement,  which  would 
have  few  attractions  for  men  of  such  acquirements  as  only  an  old 
community  could  afford;  although  it  is  not  to  be  questioned  that 
some  of  the  robustest  intellects  in  the  land  have  been  nurtured  in 
those  primitive  and  truly  republican  schools,  where  no  hot-bed  cul- 
ture was  admissible,  and  every  sickly  plant  was  doomed  to  die. 
Whether  he  succeeded  in  attaining  any  great  distinction  in  his  new 
profession,  where  success  is  dependent  generally  on  a  peculiarity 
of  taste  or  mental  structure,  and  where  industry  is  so  often  an 
over-match  for  talent,  is  by  no  means  clear.  We  do  know,  how- 
ever, .that  his  abilities  and  worth  were  duly  recognized  at  home  by 
his  triumphant  election  in  1846  to  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States — where  he  served,  however,  but  for  a  single  term — as  well 
as  by  the  award  to  him,  by  common  consent,  of  the  championship 
of  the  Free  State  party,  on  the  occasion  of  the  controversy  which 
grew  out  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill.  In  1856  he  was  presented 
by  his  State,  and  supported  largely,  as  a  candidate  for  the  office  of 
Vice  President  on  the  Republican  ticket  of  that  year ;  and  in  the 
canvass  of  1858,  as  the  accepted  candidate  for  Senator,  he  discussed 
before  the  people  of  Illinois  the  question  of  the  extension  of  slavery 
into  the  Territories,  in  a  series  of  debates  which  riveted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  nation,  by  the  clearness  of  their  statements,  and  the 
immense  logical  power  which  they  displayed.  It  was  perhaps  to 
the  publicity  of  these  efforts  that  he  was  mainly  indebted  for  the 
great  distinction  conferred  on  him  by  the  Convention  of  1860,  in 
singling  him  out,  above  all  competitors,  as  the  standard-bearer  of 
the  army  of  freedom  in  that  memorable  campaign. 

And  this  brief  narrative — compiled  from  unauthentic  sources, 
and  making  no  pretension  to  the  accuracy  of  biography — is  a  sum- 
mary of  his  career  until  called  by  Providence  to  enact  a  part  that 


10 

has  been  assigned  to  few  men  in  history.  How  he  performed  his 
duty  is  perhaps  best  evidenced  by  the  difficulties  he  had  to  meet, 
and  the  final  result  of  the  war  which  pervaded  his  whole  adminis- 
tration. He  bargained  only  for  a  peaceful  rule,  like  that  of  his 
predecessors.  If  he  could  have  foreseen  the  magnitude  of  the  task 
that  was  before  him,  he  might  well  have  shrunk  from  the  trial. 
He  would  have  been  a  bold  man,  who,  with  such  fore-knowledge, 
would  willingly  have  taken  the  helm  in  such  a  storm  as  howled 
around  him  on  his  advent,  and  strained  the  timbers  of  the  ship  of 
state  for  so  many  long  and  weary  years.  To  him  the  place,  how- 
ever exalted  and  honorable,  was  one  of  anxious  and  unsleeping 
care.  No  man  can  tell  how  much  of  agony  it  cost  a  heart  like  his. 
It  is  to  that  point  of  his  career,  however,  that  our  inquiries  are  to 
be  directed,  if  we  would  know  the  man.  The  history  of  the  great 
rebellion,  comprehending  all  or  nearly  all  of  his  public  life,  is  em- 
phatically his  history.  It  began  and  ended  with  his  administration 
of  the  government.  He  succeeded  to  a  divided  sceptre.  He  lived 
just  long  enough  to  re-unite  the  broken  fragments — to  re-plant  the 
starry  banner  of  our  fathers  on  the  battlements  whence  treason  had 
expelled  it — to  see  the  arch-apostate  who  had  seduced  a  third  .part 
of  the  States  from  their  allegiance,  a  wanderer  and  a  fugitive — 
and  to  leave  to  his  successor  a  once  more  undivided  Union. 

"With  this  slender  preparation,  however,  and  with  no  previous 
training  in  the  mysteries  of  government,  he  was  translated  to  the 
Federal  capital  in  the  most  eventful  crisis  of  our  history,  to  take 
upon  his  shoulders  such  a  burthen  of  responsibility  as  no  President 
had  ever  been  called  upon  to  bear.  The  assassin  lurked  upon  his 
path.  Already  the  Southern  horizon  was  red  with  the  fires  of  in- 
cipient rebellion.  Already  State  after  State,  encouraged  either  by 
the  premeditated  treason,  or  the  helpless  pusillanimity  of  the  miser- 
able imbecile  who  stood  pale  and  trembling  at  the  capital,  had  shot 
madly  from  its  orbit.  The  strongholds  of  the  Union,  constructed 
at  great  expense  for  the  protection  of  the  South,  had  been  either 
seized  by  violence,  or  basely  surrendered  by  their  garrisons.  The 
seat  of  our  National  Government  was  reeking  with  disloyalty. 
While  tieason  was  the  badge  of  respectability  there,  Republicanism 
was  tabooed  as  something  that  was  only  vulgar  and  vile.  The 
Bureaus  of  the  several  Departments  were  swarming  with  malig- 
nants,  who  were  looking  anxiously  in  the  direction  of  the  South  for 


11 

an  irruption  of  the  rebel  hordes,  and  ready  to  surrender  the  keys 
of  their  offices  on  the  first  summons  of  the  public  enemy.  There 
wr  s  no  direction  in  which  the  President  could  turn  for  support,  in 
the  contingency  of  any  concerted  movement  to  prevent  his  inaugu- 
ration. The  army,  inconsiderable  in  itself,  had  been  detached  to 
distant  cantonments,  where  it  could  afford  no  aid,  and  was  sure  to 
become  an  easy  prey.  Its  officers — the  eleves  of  our  military 
school — the  most  of  Southern  birth,  but  some  of  Northern  origin, 
debauched  by  their  associations,  or  with  naturally  slavish  instincts 
and  unbounded  admiration  for  Southern  institutions  and  Southern 
men,  were  generally  disaffected  to  the  Union,  Avhoss  bread  they 
ate,  and  whose  flag  they  were  sworn  to  defend.  Not  a  ship  of  war 
was  to  be  found  upon  our  coast ;  not  a  soldier  at  the  capital  to  de- 
fend the  person  of  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  country,  except, 
perhaps,  a  slender  escort,  of  more  than  doubtful  loyalty,  improvised 
for  the  occasion  by  the  Lieutenant  General,  upon  the  urgent  im- 
portunity of  men  who  realized  the  danger  of  a  coup  d'etat,  as  the 
new  President  himself  did  not.  There  was  nothing,  in  fact,  but 
the  mere  prestige  of  the  office,  the  habitual  respect  for  the  person 
of  the  Chief  Magistrate,  and  the  probable  re-action  that  would 
ensue  upon  any  demonstration  of  violence,  and,  above  all,  the  well- 
understood  determination  of  the  thousands  of  brave  men  who  were 
assembled  there  from  the  free  States,  secretly  armed  and  ready  for 
such  an  emergency,  to  prevent  or  punish  any  attempt  that  might 
be  made  on  the  life  of  the  President.  And  yet  he  did  not  shrink 
from  the  ordeal,  but  there,  on  the  steps  of  the  capitol,  under  the 
blazing  sunlight,  in  the  presence  of  all  that  innumerable  concourse, 
and  in  the  hearing  of  a  listening  world,  in  terms  of  kindness,  and 
not  of  menace,  but  with  a  seriousness  and  solemnity  that  were  not 
to  be  mistaken,  he  proclaimed  IT'S  firm  and  unalterable  determina- 
tion to  employ  all  the  powers  vested  in  him  by  the  Constitution  in 
maintaining  the  integrity  and  inviolability  of  the  Union,  from  sea 
to  sea,  and  from  the  lakes  to  the  gulf,  and  restoring  to  its  authority 
every  State  and  fortress  that  had  been  wrested  from  it  by  the 
hands  of  treason.  Rebellion,  already  organized  and  armed,  and 
confident  of  its  superior  prowess,  received  the  announcement  with 
derisive  laughter,  as  but  an  idle  vaunt  on  the  part  of  a  President 
•who  was  without  a  soldier  or  a  ship  to  batter  down  the  very  feeblest 
of  its  strongholds.  He  knew  that  there  was  an  army  in  the  fields 


12 

and  workshops  of  the  North,  which  only  awaited  his  call  to  do  this 
work.  A  million  of  stalwart  men  sprung  to  their  arms  upon  his 
summons,  and  the  pledge  was  redeemed.  The  boastful  chivalry 
went  down  before  the  sturdy  arms  and  stormy  valor  of  the  men 
they  had  so  foolishly  despised;  and  where  are  they  now  who 
laughed  to  scorn  the  admonitions  of  that  day,  and  arrogantly  pro- 
claimed to  their  deluded  followers  that  the  capital  of  the  nation, 
and  the  rich  spoils  of  the  opulent  and  crowded  cities  of  the  North, 
should  be  given  to  their  victorious  arms  ?  They  have  found  only  a 
grave,  where  they  meditated  an  easy  conquest.  But  Abraham 
Lincoln  lived  to  see  his  pledge  fulfilled.  His  work  was  done,  and 
he  too  sleeps  with  his  fathers.  It  had  cost  many  priceless  lives  to 
do  that  work.  It  was  to  be  consummated  by  the  sacrifice  of  his 
own — the  most  priceless,  perhaps,  of  all.  The  demon  which  he 
exorcised  was  to  collect  all  his  remaining  strength  into  one  expiring 
blow  at  the  head  of  his  destroyer,  as  he  fled  howling,  and  in  de- 
spair, from  the  seat  of  his  long  cherished  but  now  forever  lost 
dominion  upon  earth.  The  final  catastrophe  was  in  precise  keeping 
with  the  whole  spirit  of  the  bloody  drama  which  it  concluded. 
Beginning  in  treason,  with  perjury,  and  robbery,  and  starvation, 
and  murder,  as  its  handmaids,  it  could  not  have  ended  more  fitting- 
ly than  in  the  cruel,  and  cowardly,  and  revengeful  assassination  of 
the  heroic  leader  who  had  stricken  down  the  sacrilegious  hand  that 
was  lifted  against  the  nation's  life.  Miserable  and  short-sighted 
revenge !  The  blow  which  prostrated  our  honored  chief,  while  it 
made  no  interregnum,  and  paralyzed  no  nerve  of  the  government, 
has  been  his  apotheosis.  The  hand  of  the  assassin  is  already  cold. 
A  swift  retribution  has  overtaken  the  miscreant  who  was  put  upon 
this  work,  while  the  hands  of  justice  are  already  laid  upon  the 
highest  of  its  guilty  authors,  and  the  avenger  of  blood  is  tracking 
his  accomplices  to  their  last  retreat.  But  they,  too,  will  not 
altogether  die.  The  obscurity  that  they  might  well  pray  for,  is  not 
for  such  as  them.  There  can  be  no  oblivion  for  such  a  parricide. 
The  flash  of  that  fatal  pistol  in  the  theatre  at  Washington,  which 
sent  its  leaden  contents  crashing  through  the  brain  of  our  honored 
magistrate,  will  blaze  around  them  like  the  gleam  of  the  assassins' 
daggers  that  sought  the  great  hearts  of  Henry  of  Navarre  and  the 
heroic  Prince  of  Orange,  and  light  their  memories  down,  from  age 
to  age,  through  the  long  corridors  of  history. 


13 

It  was  a  disadvantage,  too,  of  no  small  moment  to  an  untried 
man,  to  find  himself  surrounded  by  counselors  of  fair  repute,  who 
had  either  nothing  to  propose,  or  doubted  the  power  or  rightfulness 
of  coercion  in  a  government  like  this,  or  thought  that  even  separa- 
tion itself  was  better  than  war,  or  hoped  to  patch  up  an  ignoble 
truce,  by  compromising  the  questions  in  dispute,  and  furnishing 
additional  and  perpetual  guarantees  to  the  insatiable  interest  which 
had  come  to  despise  even  the  privilege  of  ruling  this  nation,  as  it  had 
done  before.  It  will  scarcely  be  believed  in  future  times,  how  many 
there  were,  enjoying  the  reputations  of  statesmen,  who  were  com- 
mitted to  one  or  other  of  these  opinions.  But  Avhile  the  question 
hung  suspended  between  these  conflicting  views,  although  every 
concession  had  been  proposed,  and  every  effort  toward  compromise 
had  failed,  and  while  the  nation  was  sweating  in  mortal  agony, 
with  seven  States  defying  its  authority,  and  formidable  batteries 
rising  from  day  to  day  under  the  shadow  of  our  own  guns,  around 
our  fortresses  in  Charleston  harbor,  the  knot  was  happily  untied 
by  the  impatient  hands  of  the  conspirators  themselves.  To  secure 
the  co-operation  of  the  States  that  still  stood  hesitating,  it  was 
deemed  necessary  "to  fire  the  Southern  heart"  by  some  stupendous 
act  of  violence,  that  should  dig  an  impassable  gulf  between  them 
and  us;  and  their  guns  were  accordingly  trained,  amid  the  sounds 
of  revelry  and  the  exultant  huzzas  of  an  intoxicated  populace, 
upon  the  old  flag  that  was  still  floating  over  the  feeble  garrison  of 
Sumter.  It  was  a  gay  tourney  for  fair  ladies  and  gallant  knights — 
an  easy  victory,  but  a  short  lived  triumph.  The  walls  of  Sumter 
crumbled  under  the  terrific  storm  that  burst  upon  them  from  the 
hundred  iron  throats  that  girdled  them  around  as  with  a  cataract 
of  fire,  and  its  garrison  succumbed.  But  the  echoes  of  those  guns 
lighted  up  a  flame  in  the  colder  North,  that  melted  down  all  party 
ties  with  more  than  furnace  heat,  and  was  only  to  be  extinguished 
in  the  blood  of  the  fools  and  madmen  who  had  been  taught  by  their 
Northern  auxiliaries  to  look  for  no  such  answer  to  their  defiant 
challenge.  The  President  could  hesitate  no  longer.  Menace  and 
insult  had  developed  into  open  war,  and  the  time  had  now  come  to 
redeem  the  pledge  that  he  had  made,  by  summoning  the  freemen 
of  America  to  defend  their  flag.  He  called,  and  such  an  answer 
was  returned  as  no  people  had  ever  before  given  to  the  summons  of 
its  chief.  From  town  and  country,  from  the  lumbermen  of  the 


14 

pine  woods  of  the  Madawaska  to  the  trappers  of  the  upper  Mis- 
souri, and  the  gold  hunters  of  the  more  distant  sierras,  as  the 
reverberations  of  that  trumpet-blast  leaped  from  mountain  to 
mountain,  and  pealed  over  the  great  plains  and  along  the  mighty 
rivers  of  the  land,  the  old,  the  middle-aged,  and  the  young,  with 
one  common  impulse,  and  without  distinction  of  party  or  of  creed, 
•with  but  a  hurried  farewell  to  wife,  and  children,  and  home,  were 
seen  thronging  the  iron  highways  to  their  respective  capitals,  and 
begging  for  the  privilege  of  enrolling  themselves  among  the  de- 
fenders of  their  country,  and  dying,  if  need  be,  under  the  shadow 
of  its  flag.  It  was  no  monarch's  battle.  It  was  their  own  honored 
and  glorious  banner,  the  symbol  alike  of  their  power  and  their 
privileges,  that  had  been  insulted  and  defied.  Away  with  the 
idea  of  caution  and  slow  resolve,  when  such  huge  interests  are 
at  stake.  That  is  for  diplomatists  and  strategists.  Men  do  not 
stop  to  calculate  the  odds,  the  chances,  or  the  dangers,  when  it  is 
a  question  of  resenting  contumely,  or  defending  the  object  of  their 
love.  They  did  not  wait  to  be  schooled  to  a  sense  of  their  in- 
terests, or  duties,  or  the  necessities  of  the  times,  any  more  than  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  use  of  arms.  To  affirm,  as  has  not  been  un- 
usual in  high  places,  that  they  require  to  be  educated  by  their 
rulers  up  to  the  level  of  such  an  occasion,  is  to  ignore  the  whole 
experience  of  that  memorable  day,  whose  manifestations  took  the 
doubting  by  surprise,  and  so  utterly  confounded  all  the  calculations 
of  the  few  amongst  ourselves  who  looked  for,  and  had  promised  a 
divided  North.  The  call  itself  was  but  a  response  to  the  popular 
desire,  which  had  anticipated  it.  The  answer  was  an  assurance  to 
the  Government  that  it  would  be  sustained  in  every  measure  of 
severity  that  the  crisis  might  demand. 

But  it  was  a  still  greater  disadvantage  to  the  new  Executive, 
that  the  full  import  of  this  rebellion  was  not  even  comprehended 
by  many  of  those  to  whom  he  was  expected  to  look  for  advice,  in  a 
crisis  where  the  ordinary  responsibilities  of  the  office  were  so  much 
enlarged.  Although  its  causes,  its  history,  and  its  objects  were 
obviously  such  as  to  render  a  compromise  impossible — although  the 
leaders  of  the  revolt  had  voluntarily  abdicated  their  places  in  the 
government,  and  gone  out  from  us,  when  they  might  have  dictated 
their  own  terms — and  although  they  had  contemptuously  spurned 
every  overture  for  negotiation,  and  affected  no  concealment  of  their 


15 

deep-seated  and  implacable  hatred  not  only  of  ourselves,  but  of  our 
very  form  of  government — there  were  still  sanguine  and  credulous 
men  in  eminent  positions,  who  believed  that  the  rebellion  could  be 
suppressed  in  ninety  days — not  by  war,  but  by  diplomacy — not  by 
striking  at  its  causes,  but  by  ignoring  them — not  by  punishing  its 
authors,  but  by  indulging  them — not  by  a  change  of  measures,  but 
by  a  persistence  in  the  very  policy  that  had  brought  it  on.  In  the 
view  of  men  like  these,  every  forward  step  was  fraught  with  danger. 
Even  the  simple  and  obvious  proposition  to  repeal  the  law  that 
made  the  capital  of  a  free  nation  the  home  and  market  of  the  slave, 
and  the  fruitful  nursery  of  the  rebellion  itself,  was  represented  as 
so  full  of  mischief,  at  such  a  time,  that  the  President  himself  was 
almost  staggered  by  the  shadowy  forms  of  terror  that  were  evoked 
to  stay  his  hand.  If  he  had  yielded  to  them,  we  should  not  have 
reached  the  great  measure  of  the  proclamation  for  at  least  another 
year,  if  ever.  It  met  the  same  resistance  as  the  other,  but  the 
practical  good  sense  of  the  President,  backed  up  and  fortified  by 
the  high  courage  and  unanswerable  logic  of  at  least  one  member  of 
his  Cabinet,  at  length  overmastered  all  these  influences,  and  the 
great  charter  of  the  black  man  was  produced  before  them  as  a 
measure  upon  which  he  had  already  privately  determined,  upon  his 
own  responsibility  to  the  nation.  It  is  due  to  the  just  fame  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  that  the  world,  instead  of  dividing  the  honor  of 
the  act  with  other  possible  claimants  in  future  times,  should  know 
how  little  he  was  aided  in  the  task — how  much  of  opposition  he  was 
called  upon  to  meet — and  how  much  of  moral  heroism  that  act  in- ' 
volved.  It  was  no  trifling  disadvantage,  certainly,  to  a  new  and 
unpracticed  statesman,  in  a  position  of  such  unusual  responsibility, 
to  be  surrounded  with  men  of  weak  nerves,  who  had  not  the  cour- 
age to  face  the  exigency  which  their  own  counsels  had  precipitated. 
The  occasion  called  for  intrepid  statesmen,  as  well  as  generals, 
who,  with  a  just  confidence  in  the  people,  instead  of  stopping  to 
calculate  the  possible  odds,  and  betraying  a  hesitation  that  at  least 
resembled  fear,  and  thereby  throwing  away  all  the  advantages 
which  the  possession  of  the  government  gave  them,  would  have 
struck  at  once,  and  with  lightning-like  rapidity,  at  the  very  heart 
of  the  rebellion.  The  sublime  response  which  the  people  had 
already  made,  was  an  assurance  that  they  could  be  trusted.  It 
was  a  sore  trial,  too,  for  them  to  see  their  fiery  legions  condemned 


16 

to  stagnate  in  inglorious  repose,  until,  in  some  instances,  their  terms 
of  service  were  about  expiring,  while  their  very  capital  was  be- 
leaguered by  an  insolent  banditti,  whom  they  could  have  swept  like 
chaff  before  them.     No  government  in  the  world  could  have  sur- 
vived it  but  our  own,  and  it  is  no  marvel,  therefore,  that  some  of 
the  most  enlightened  statesmen  of  Europe,  educated  in  the  tra- 
ditional notion  that  the  democratic  idea  was  a  delusion,  and  that 
a  government  like  ours,  though  formidable  in  external  war,  was 
helpless  for  self-conservation,  and  must  fall  a  prey  to  the  first  in- 
testine convulsion,  and  reasoning  from  the  abject  condition  and 
low  intelligence  of  the  people  around  them,  should  have  hurried  to 
recognize  the  rebels  as  belligerents,  and  staked  their  reputations 
on  the  opinion  that  the  great  American  Republic,  the  wonder  and 
terror  of  the  world,  and  the  standing  reproach  of  all  its  monarchies, 
was  rent  irreparably  in  twain.     I  do  not  speak  of  this  now  as  a 
thing  to  be  regretted.     It  seems  as  though,  in  the  providence  of 
God,  it  had  been  intended  not  only  to  cleanse  this  land  of  its  great 
sin,  but  to  confound  the  unbelievers  in  the  high  capabilities  and 
lofty  destinies  of  our  race,  by  passing  us  through  the  fiercest  fire, 
and  contriving  every  possible  test — even  to.  the  final  catastrophe  of 
the  assassination  of  our  Federal  Head — to  establish  the  great  fact 
of  the  ability  of  man  to  govern  himself,  and  to  dispense,  under  all 
circumstances,  with  the  machinery  of  hereditary  rule.    A  different 
policy,  by  rendering  the  task  an  easier  and  a  speedier  one,  would 
have  left  the  world  and  ourselves  much  to  learn  of  our  resources 
and  capabilities,  and  much  of  the  barbarism  of  that  institution 
which  it  would  have  left  substantially  intact,   to  breed  new  re- 
bellions, and  exact  new  sacrifices  from  our  posterity. 

It  was  under  these  influences,  strengthened  as  they  were  by  an 
apprehension  not  apparently  removed  by  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
they  responded  to  the  call  of  the  President,  that  the  people  were 
not  yet  up  to  the  real  level  of  the  crisis,  and  not  prepared  for  the 
adoption  of  such  earnest  measures  of  repression  as  a  state  of  war 
demanded,  that  the  armies  of  the  Union  were  brought  into  the 
field.  It  was  not  for  the  Chief  Magistrate,  of  course,  to  direct 
their  operations  in  person.  But  his  generals  were  unfortunately 
either  men  of  Southern  birth,  or  men  who  had  been  educated  in  a 
feeling  of  profound  reverence  for  Southern  institutions.  With 
them  it  was  almost  profanation  to  invade  the  sacred  soil  of  a 


17 

sovereign  State.  With  them  the  treason  of  their  ancient  comrades, 
if  not  a  chivalrous  virtue,  was  only  the  infirmity  of  a  noble  mind. 
Perjury  and  ingratitude  the  blackest  and  most  damning — rebellion 
and  treachery  the  most  wanton  and  unprovoked — implied  no  stain 
upon  the  personal  honor  of  their  enemy.  Longstreet  and  Jackson 
were  models  of  Christian  virtue — Lee  and  Beaurcgard  unblemished 
specimens  of  elegant  and  well-bred  gentlemen — every  ingrate 
especially,  who  had  betrayed  the  Government  that  reared  him,  an 
honorable  man.  No  "kind  regard"  Avas  forfeited  by  their  base 
defection;  no  hand  refused  in  friendly  greeting,  though  red  with 
a  brother's  blood;  no  fervent  "God  bless  you,"  left  unuttered 
because  the  recipient  had  blackened  his  soul  with  the  foulest  and 
basest  crime  that  history  records.  To  have  opened  their  camps  to 
a  loyal  negro,  would  have  been  a  violation  of  the  constitutional 
rights  of  his  rebel  master.  Knightly  courtesy  required  his  return. 
To  have  hearkened  to  the  evidence  he  brought  of  the  strength  and 
position  of  the  enemy,  would  have  been  a-  violation  of  the  rule 
which  disqualified  him  as  a  witness  against  his  master.  Rebel  ex- 
aggerations for  purposes  of  effect,  were  more  acceptable  than  the 
simple,  unvarnished  truth  from  the  lips  of  a  runaway  contraband. 
What  success  was  to  be  hoped  for,  with  such  instruments?  The 
President  himself  both  saw  and  felt  the  difiiculty.  His  patience 
was  severely  tried,  but  what  was  he  to  do  ?  If  he  ordered  a  move- 
ment in  advance,  the  weather  was  either  too  cold  or  too  hot — the 
mud  was  axle-deep  or  the  dust  intolerable.  If  made,  it  was  done 
reluctantly,  or  with  a  protest,  and  the  responsibility  of  a  failure  was 
with  him.  If  refused,  and  he  threatened  to  displace  the  officer,  it 
was  perhaps  suggested  to  him,  that  the  army  or  the  people  would 
revolt,  while  they  were  actually  chafing  with  impatience — the  re- 
bellion growing  in  strength — and  the  friends  of  the  Government 
beginning  to  despair.  In  this  dilemma,  it  became  necessary  for 
him  to  take  up  the  question  of  an  entire  change  of  policy.  The 
struggle  was  a  long  and  painful  one.  If  he  had  felt  at  liberty  to 
consult  the  promptings  of  his  own  mind  and  heart,  in  a  case  where 
the  life  of  a  nation  was  depending  on  his  decision,  it  would  have 
ended  as  soon  as  it  was  begun.  But  his  habitual  caution,  inten- 
sified by  a  just  sense  of  his  great  responsibility  as  an  officer,  held 
his  judgment  in  abeyance.  His  own  good  sense,  however,  tri- 
umphed at  the  last.  Unaided  but  by  the  counsels  of  a  faithful  few, 
2 


18 

ho  took  up  the  case,  calculated  all  the  elements  that  entered  into 
it,  and  arrived,  by  a  strictly  logical  process,  of  which  the  steps  are 
now  obvious,  at  the  conclusion  that  the  rebellion  could  only  be 
conquered  by  the  emancipation  of  the  slave.  He  put  that  result  in 
the  shape  of  a  Proclamation,  and  then  summoned  his  Cabinet  to- 
gether, not  to  advise,  but  to  hear  what  he  had  determined.  The 
picture  of  the  consultation  over  this  important  document,  is  the 
merest  fancy-piece.  The  point  was  decided  by  him  before  they 
met,  and  there  was  no  demur,  because  there  was  no  further  room 
for  objection. 

Nothing,  however,  is  clearer  than  the  fact  that  it  was  not  the 
original  purpose  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
States.  With  all  his  strong  convictions  that  it  was  a  crime — that, 
in  his  own  terse  language,  "if  slavery  was  not  wrong,  there  was 
nothing  wrong" — his  respect  for  the  constitutional  rights  of  the 
South  was  such  as  to  over-ride  his  own  private  sympathies  for  the 
bondsman.  With  him,  the  leading,  over-ruling  thought — the  idea 
nearest  to  his  heart — was  the  preservation  of  our  glorious  Union, 
as  God's  chosen  instrument  on  earth,  and  the  one  best  fitted,  with 
all  its  defects,  to  secure  the  peace  and  happiness  of  man.  The 
other  question  was  entirely  subordinate  to  this.  He  was  willing — 
to  quote  from  him  again — "to  save  the  Union,  with  slavery  if  he 
could,  or  without  it,  if  he  could."  His  first  idea,  encouraged,  if  not 
inspired  by  the  men  who  had  then  his  confidence,  was,  that  it  could 
only  be  saved  by  tenderness  to  that  interest,  whose  extreme  sensi- 
bility to  danger — to  say  no  worse  of  it — had  brought  all  these 
troubles — these  almost  apocalyptic  woes  upon  the  land.  Under 
these  impressions,  the  war  was  waged  for  eighteen  months,  in  such 
a  way  as  to  do  as  little  harm  as  possible  to  that  institution,  in  the 
hope  that  the  rebels  might  be  conciliated — as  they  had  never  been 
before — by  the  forbearance  of  the  Government.  It  Avas  only  the 
current  of  events — the  failure  of  this  policy — the  fuel  furnished  by 
the  great  expense,  the  tardy  progress,  and  the  inadequate  results 
of  the  war,  to  the  growing  discontent  of  the  friends  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  North — and  the  conviction  that  the  policy  of  saving 
the  Union  with  slavery  must  give  way  to  the  opposite  policy,  if  it 
was  to  be  saved  at  all — that  drifted  him  into  the  position  assumed 
for  the  first  time  in  the  Proclamation,  and  maintained  with  unwav- 
ering constancy  until  the  last  hour  of  his  life.  That  he  should  ever 


19 

have  been  persuaded  to  believe  it  possible  to  conciliate  the  men  who 
had  voluntarily  abdicated  their  places  in  the  government,  only  be- 
cause it  was  obvious  that  they  could  no  longer  hope  to  rule  it  perma- 
nently, is  to  be  set  down  more  to  the  account  of  his  habitual  caution, 
his  strong  conservative  temperament,  his  deference  to  older  heads, 
and  his  desire  to  give  full  scope  to  an  experiment  of  an  apparently 
innocuous  character,  enforced  by  the  counsels  of  almost  every  man 
around  him,  than  to  the  convictions  of  his  own  unbiased  judgment. 
The  case  was  one  of  conflicting  systems  and  ideas,  that  might  ad- 
mit of  a  truce,  but  of  no  compromise.     It  would  have  been  but  an 
adjournment  of  the  question  until  the  antagonistic  forces  had  taken 
breath  for  a  fresh  struggle,  while  the  rebel  element  was  strength- 
ening itself  in  the  meanwhile  for  new  aggressions.     The  enforced 
connection  between  Liberty  and  Slavery  was  worse  than  incestuous. 
God  and  nature  had  decreed  an  eternal  divorce  between  them. 
Our  fathers,  it  is  true,  had  made  the  experiment  of  reconciling 
these  hostile  elements — not,  however,  under  the  modern  hallucina- 
tion that  they  would  permanently  combine,  or  coalesce,  but  only 
to  keep  the  peace  between  them,  until  the  weaker  should  disappear. 
The  President  had  apprehended  this,  when  he  declared  that  this 
government  could  not  be  "half  free  and  half  slave."     Mr.  Seward 
himself  had  comprehended  it,  when  he  characterized  the  war  be- 
tween the  two  systems  as  "an  irrepressible  conflict."     As  well 
attempt  to  blend  darkness  with  light.     The  intermingled  elements 
would  produce  only  a  disastrous  twilight  with  perpetual  jars,  or,  as 
the  one  or  other  interest  predominated,  either  deepen  into  the 
chaotic  gloom  where  the  lost  spirits  are  supposed  to  dwell,  or  flush 
into  the  rosy  light  of  liberty.     The  Union  could  not  have  been 
saved  with  slavery,  any  more  than  a  man  could  be  made  immortal 
with  the  seeds  of  death  in  his  constitution.     The  inherent  vices  of 
the  system  were  sure  to  bring  about  a  conflict  at  last,  by  engender- 
ing and  fostering  the  spirit  that  inaugurated  it  here,  as  they  were 
equally  sure  to  give  to  the  contest  itself  a  character  of  fierceness 
and  atrocity  which  has  appertained  to  no  modern  war.     It  was  but 
a  new  phase  01  the  old  quarrel — as  old  as  government  itself — which 
has  shaken  the  kingdoms  and  hierarchies  of  the  world,  and  was 
destined  to  be  fought  out  here,  upon  a  wider  arena  than  any  that 
the  Old  World  could  offer.     If  it  was  not  comprehended,  however, 
by  ourselves,  the  governing  classes  in  Europe,  and  the  advocates  of 


20 

unlimited  power  everywhere,  had  not  failed  to  understand  it  from 
the  beginning. 

The  proclamation  of  freedom  was  the  first  decisive  measure  of  the 
war.  It  inaugurated  a  new  era,  and  proclaimed  the  purpose  of  the 
Government  to  wrest  from  the  rebels  their  most  effective  weapon, 
if  not  to  turn  it  against  their  own  bosoms.  The  menace  of  it  was 
at  first  derided  as  a  mere  brutum  fulmen.  by  those  who  knew  what 
was  to  be  its  effect,  and  dreaded  it  accordingly.  As  soon  as  it 
became  obvious  that  this  mode  of  attack  was  about  to  fail,  the 
policy  of  the  auxiliary  rebel  presses  of  the  North  was  changed. 
Dire  were  their  denunciations  then  of  a  measure  represented  to  be 
fraught  with  woe  to  helpless  womanhood  and  feeble  infancy,  and  big 
with  the  unutterable  horrors  of  a  servile  war.  Its  promulgation  was 
soon  after  followed  by  the  elections  of  1862,  whose  unfavorable 
results — attributable  only  to  the  public  weariness  of  the  inaction  of 
our  armies — were  adroitly  placed  to  the  account  of  this  threatened 
measure.  By  those  who  did  not  understand  the  temper  of  the 
President,  or  the  process  of  reasoning  by  which  he  had  reached 
that  point,  it  was  greatly  feared  that  he  would  falter,  when  the 
hour  of  trial  came.  But  alike  regardless  of  the  gloomy  auguries  of 
the  timid,  and  the  storm  of  obloquy  and  denunciation  that  burst 
upon  him  from  the  sympathizers  with  the  rebellion  here,  he  stood 
unmoved,  and  the  bolt  sped  at  the  appointed  hour,  and  shook  the 
rebal  capital  to  its  foundations,  as  it  lodged  in  the  very  heart  of 
the  Confederacy.  Dismay  sat  on  every  face  at  Richmond.  If  a 
shell  had  exploded  in  that  pandemonium,  where  those  dark  con- 
spirators against  the  rights  of  man  were  then  assembled,  a  greater 
consternation  could  not  have  followed.  In  the  midst  of  "  a  uni- 
versal hubbub  wild,  of  stunning  sounds,  and  voices  all  confused," 
like  that  of  chaos,  which  "assailed  the  ear  with  loudest  vehem- 
ence," a  dozen  members  were  on  their  feet  at  once,  with  retaliatory 
propositions  of  the  wildest  and  most  atrocious  character.  But  if 
there  was  gloom  there,  there  was  joy  elsewhere.  The  great  heart 
of  humanity  dilated  at  the  tidings.  The  wearied  soldier  stretched 
by  his  camp-fire,  and  joined  till  then  in  unequal  battle,  was  lifted 
up  and  comforted.  Four  millions  of  bondsmen  raised  their  unfet- 
tered hands  to  Heaven  to  call  down  blessings  on  the  head  of  the 
deliverer  \vho  had  broken  their  chains.  The  patriot  felt  that  the 
arm  of  the  country  was  strengthened  at  home  and  abroad  by  the  act 


21 

that  had  at  last  vindicated  the  solemn  truths  of  our  immortal  De- 
claration, and  placed  our  Government  once  more  in  harmony  with 
its  own  fundamental  principles.  Instead  of  any  further  necessity 
of  humbling  ourselves,  by  holding  out  to  foreign  powers  a  menace 
of  emancipation,  as  the  signal  for  a  servile  war,  in  order  to  deter 
them  from  an  intervention  which  they  never  would  have  ventured 
on — and  never  could,  without  the  risk  of  ruin  to  themselves — it  was 
no  longer  possible  for  any  Christian  nation  to  take  sides  against 
us.  It  was  the  turning  point  of  our  great  struggle,  and  the  death 
warrant  of  the  rebellion  itself.  And  it  was  just  because  they  felt 
and  knew  it,  that  it  roused  among  its  ruling  spirits  all  the  devilish 
passions  that  flamed  out  most  fiercely  during  the  latter  period  of 
the  war.  It  foreshadowed  the  appearance  of  the  black  man  himself, 
at  no  distant  day,  with  the  harness  of  the  Union  on  his  back,  as  a 
combatant  in  the  arena  on  the  side  of  liberty.  From  that  day 
forward,  with  only  the  occasional  vicissitudes  to  which  all  wars 
are  subject,  the  banner  of  the  Republic,  with  its  new  blazonry  of 
Freedom,  never  drooped  or  went  backward  in  battle.  God  was  on 
our  side.  The  holiday  generals,  great  on  the  parade — the  strategic 
imbeciles — the  half-hearted  martinets — who  were  more  solicitous  to 
protect  the  chattel  than  to  punish  the  treason  of  the  master,  gave 
place  to  a  race  of  earnest  men — heroes  of  the  Cromwellian  type 
— who  felt  the  inspiration  of  their  work,  and  with  a  faith  that  no 
reverses  could  shake,  and  no  disaster  disturb,  were  ever  ready  to 
second  or  anticipate  the  fiery  ardor  of  their  legions,  by  giving  a  full 
rein  to  the  spirit  that  had  chafed  and  fretted  under  inglorious  re- 
straint, whether  it  was  to  plunge  into  the  fastnesses  of  the  Rapidan,, 
to  scale  the  Alpine  passes  of  the  Tennessee,  or  to  sweep  with 
resistless  force  across  the  sunny  plains  of  Georgia.  The  rebellion 
was  doomed,  and  the  baleful  star  that  had  rushed  up  with  the  ve- 
locity of  a  meteor  into  the  forehead  of  the  sky,  and  shed  its  porten- 
tous glare  for  a  moment  upon  the  nations,  plunged  down  again  into 
eternal  night,  to  be  remembered  hereafter  only  as  one  of  those 
scourges  of  humanity,  that  are  sometimes  let  loose  upon  the  earth 
for  high  and  inscrutable  purposes. 

But  it  is  not  for  me  to  follow  the  history  of  this  long  and  bloody 
struggle  through  all  its  varying  fortunes  to  the  period  of  its  final 
consummation.  That  is  a  task  which  belongs  to  the  historian.  It 
has  some  points  of  interest,  however,  that  are  not  unworthy  of 


22 

commemoration,  and  not  unsuited  to  the  occasion  that  has  brought 
us  here. 

The  scene  that  has  just  passed  before  our  vision,  was  such  as  has 
been  presented  to  no  other  generation  of  men.     Few  of  us  have 
perhaps  fully  realized  the  importance  of  the  part  that  has  been 
assigned  to  us  in  history.     The  records  of  our  race  have  nothing 
to  offer  so  grand  and  imposing  as  this  bloody  conflict,  in  its  mag- 
nitude, its  causes,  its  theatre,  and  its  details.     A  peaceful  nation, 
schooled  only  in  the  arts  of  quiet  industry,  entirely  unfamiliar 
with  the  use  of  arms,  holding  itself  aloof  from  the  political  compli- 
cations of  the  old  world,  and  but  thinly  diffused  over  half  a  conti- 
nent— imagining  no  evil,  and  fearing  none  from  others — is  suddenly 
startled  from  its  repose  by  the  blare  of  the  trumpet,  and  the  roll  of 
the  martial  drum,  and  summoned  to  the  defense  of  its  institutions, 
its  liberties,  its  very  life,  against  a  wicked  conspiracy,  organized  in 
its  own  bosom  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  it.     It  not  only  re- 
sponds to  the  call,  but  astonishes  the  world  by  an  exhibition  of 
unanimity,  and  zeal,  and  high  religious  fervor,  which  have  had  no 
example  since  the  era  of  the  Crusades.     In  utter  forgetfulness  of 
self,  of  danger,  and  of  the  comforts  and  endearments  of  home,  it 
covers  the  earth  with  its  living  tides,  as  it  rushes  to  the  rescue  of 
the  object  of  its  love.     Over  a  region  almost  as  wide  as  the  united 
kingdoms  of  Europe,  a  million  of  brave  hearts  are  marshaled  in 
armed  array,  with  implements  of  destruction  such  as  no  age  hath 
seen.     Along  the  Atlantic  coast,  across  the  great  rivers,  and  the 
boundless   prairies   of  the   mighty   West,    over  the  swamps    and 
savannas  of  the  distant  South,  through  forest,  brake  and  wilder- 
ness, through  bayou  and  morass,  over  rugged  mountains,  and  along 
the  cultivated  plains  that  laugh  with  the  abundance  with  which 
industry  has  covered  them — the  earth  shakes  with  the  tread  of  em- 
battled hosts,  while  bay  and  gulf  swarm  with  innumerable  prows, 
and  the  shores  against  which  the  tides  of  two  oceans  break,  are 
belted  around  with  those  leviathans  of  the  deep,  which  bear  our 
thunders,  and  are  destined  hereafter  to  proclaim  our  power  in  the 
remotest  seas.     It  is  the  battle  of  the  Titans,  with  fitting  accesso- 
ries, with  lists  scarce  less  ample,  with  enginery  as  complete,  and 
upon  a  theatre  almost  as  stupendous,  as  that  which  the  genius  of 
Milton  has  assigned  to  the  armies  of  angel  and  archangel  joined  in 
battle  for  the  supremacy  of  Heaven.     The  Old  World,  till  now 


ignorant  of  the  power  that  had  been  sleeping  here,  stands  amazed 
at  an  exhibition  which  its  united  kingdoms  would  in  vain  essay  to 
match.  It  comprehends  at  once  the  whole  significance  of  the 
struggle.  It  is  the  world's  battle — the  same  that  has  been  fought 
so  often  with  other  watch-words,  and  on  other  fields — the  old  con- 
flict between  antagonistic  social  forms — between  the  people  and  the 
kings — between  the  privileges  of  caste  and  the  Republican  idea 
of  equality.  It  feels  that  the  interests  of  all  its  ancient,  and  hoary, 
and  moss-grown  establishments — its  thrones  and  hierarchies  alike 
— resting  on  the  prescription  of  a  thousand  years,  and  buttressed 
by  the  still  older  traditional  idea,  that  man  is  unfit  to  govern 
himself,  are  staked  on  the  issue  of  this  contest.  It  sees,  or  thinks 
it  sees,  in  the  martial  array  of  the  disciplined  legions  of  the  Con- 
federacy, inflated  with  pride,  and  sneering  at  the  base-born  hinds 
and  greasy  mechanics  of  the  Free  States,  the  impersonation  of  the 
mailed  chivalry  who  rode  down  the  miserable  Jacquerie  of  France 
five  hundred  years  ago.  Forgetful  of  its  treaties  of  commerce 
and  amity — oblivious  even  of  its  own  apparent  interests,  in  the 
maintenance  of  due  authority  and  subordination  between  govern- 
ment and  subjeofc — ignoring  alike  the  usages,  and  customs,  and 
comity  of  nations — it  does  not  find  patience  even  to  await  the  issue 
of  a  battle.  The  disruption  of  this  great  Republic — the  standing 
reproach  and  menace  of  royalty  in  all  its  forms — is  assumed  as  a 
fact  accomplished,  upon  this  mistaken  view,  and  the  additional 
postulate  of  its  statesmen,  that  a  structure  like  our  own,  however 
prosperous  or  formidable  against  external  violence,  is  without  the 
power  of  self-preservation,  and  must  inevitably  perish  on  the  first 
internal  convulsion.  It  does  not  even  stop  to  inquire  into  the 
special  provocations,  if  any,  for  this  wanton  and  wicked  rebellion 
against  authority  and  humanity.  Professing  to  make  war  against 
the  slave  trade,  denouncing  it  as  piracy,  and  employing  fleets  for 
its  suppression,  it  does  not  even  revolt  at  the  unexampled,  and 
atrocious,  and  anti-christian  idea  of  a  government,  boldly  and 
shamelessly  declaring  its  only  purpose  to  be  the  perpetuation  of 
human  bondage — an  organized  piracy,  and  a  systematic  attack  upon 
the  rights  of  man.  In  its  anxiety  to  aid  the  cause  on  which  its 
own  institutions  are  depending,  it  hurries  with  an  indecent  precipi- 
tancy into  the  recognition  of  a  belligerency,  tha  t  will  enable  it  to 
serve  the  interest  in  which  it  dares  not  venture  openly  to  draw  its 


24 

sword,  by  throwing  wide  its  ports  to  the  privateers  of  the  enemy, 
and  fitting  out  its  own  cruisers  to  prey  upon  our  commerce  on  the 
seas.  Its  governmental  press,  aided  by  its  hireling  scribblers  here, 
is  prostituted  to  the  base  employment  of  showing  the  inevitable 
failure  of  our  great  experiment,  by  maligning  our  brave  defenders, 
and  libeling  our  sainted  President.  Its  Ministers  at  our  own 
capital,  prompted  by  the  same  instincts,  and  sympathizing  openly 
with  our  enemies,  and  equally  ignorant  of  the  people  to  whom  they 
are  accredited,  advise  their  sovereigns,  and  are  allowed  to  proclaim 
here  openly  without  rebuke,  that  our  career  as  a  nation  is  at  an  end ; 
and  inwardly  rejoice  with  them,  that  a  power  declared  by  themselves 
to  be  too  formidable  for  the  world's  peace,  and  too  formidable  to 
be  safely  met  either  upon  the  sea  or  upon  the  land,  by  their  united 
strength,  has  perishtd  miserably  by  intestine  strife — the  supposed 
inherent  and  unavoidable  disease  of  the  republics  of  all  times. 

How  great  has  been  its  error !  How  disappointed  all  its  flatter- 
ing prognostications  !  How  utterly  has  all  its  boasted  wisdom  been 
confounded  by  events !  How  deeply  does  it  now  tremble  in  the 
presence  of  the  great  fact,  which  it  is  yet  reluctant  to  acknowledge, 
that  this  nation,  with  all  the  sympathies  of  the  governments  of  the 
world  against  it,  has  proved  its  indestructibility,  by  a  trial  which 
no  European  State  could  have  outlived !  But  how  inexpressibly 
grand  and  sublime — what  a  spectacle  for  men  and  angels,  has  been 
the  attitude  of  this  people  throughout  the  fiery  trials  of  these  four 
eventful  years  !  What  a  theme  for  an  epic  such  as  Milton  or  Tasso 
might  have  written — the  great  Republic  of  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere— the  world's  last  champion — charged  with  the  loftiest  in- 
terests that  ever  were  committed  to  the  guardianship  of  man — 
belted  around  by  enemies,  open  and  secret,  who  were  thirsting  for 
its  destruction — torn  by  intestine  strife,  and  bleeding  at  every 
pore — without  the  sympathy  of  any  one  of  the  ruling  powers  of 
earth,  and  with  no  help  but  the  prayers  of  the  faithful  few  in  all 
lands,  who  looked  upon  its  star  as  the  last  hope  of  the  oppressed — 
standing  alone,  like  a  solitary  rock  in  the  ocean,  with  the  tempests 
howling  wildly  around  it,  but  flinging  off  the  angry  surges  which 
dash  and  break  against  its  sides,  and  bearing  aloft  with  intrepid 
and  unfaltering  hand,  amid  the  wild  uproar  of  elemental  war,  the 
broad  ensign  of  our  Fathers — the  pledge  of  freedom  to  universal 
man  !  If  the  enemies  of  liberty  now  tremble  in  our  presence,  it 


25 

is  not  more  from  the  dread  of  a  resentment,  which  they  feel 
to  have  been  justly  merited,  than  from  an  apprehension  of  the  con- 
sequences of  the  sublime  lesson  of  constancy,  and  faith,  and  self- 
sacrifice,  and  persevering  courage,  which  we  have  given  to  the 
world,  throughout  a  contest  commenced  under  circumstances  the 
most  adverse,  and  prosecuted  by  the  people  themselves,  with  a 
more  than  royal  munificence,  as  essentially  their  war,  and  the  first 
in  history  that  has  been  so  recognized. 

In  no  aspect  of  the  whole  case  were  the  eminent  prudence  and 
lofty  patriotism  of  our  great  leader  more  strongly  exemplified,  than 
in  the  forbearance  and  moderation  with  which  he  ignored  these 
transparent  evidences  of  unfriendliness  on  the  part  of  foreign 
governments,  aggravated,  as  they  were,  by  the  most  indecent  person- 
al attacks  upon  himself.  Without  personal  resentments,  and  great 
enough  to  despise  abuse,  even  if  he  had  felt  it,  he  knew  that  the 
success  of  our  struggle  was  the  best  answer  that  could  be  made  to 
those  who  wished  us  ill.  He  is  already  avenged  in  the  only  way 
in  which  his  great  heart  would  have  desired  it.  The  bloody  cat- 
astrophe that  hurried  him  from  our  sight,  has  flashed  upon  the 
European  world  with  a  suddenness  which  has  swept  down  the 
barriers  of  prejudice,  and  extorted  even  from  his  enemies  the  con- 
fession, that  in  him  a  truly  great  man — of  the  pure  American 
type  —  of  far-reaching  sagacity  —  of  unexampled  modesty  and 
moderation — has  fallen.  The  powers  of  language  almost  fail  to 
convey  their  now  exalted  sense  of  the  high-souled  magnanimity 
with  which  he  has  forborne  to  respond  in  kind  to  the  many  provo- 
cations that  have  been  offered.  He  is  pronounced  by  great  authori- 
ty in  England  "a  king  of  men" — not  in  the  Homeric  sense,  as 
used  in  reference  to  the  Argive  chief — not  because,  like  the  wrath- 
ful Achilles,  whose  ire  was  fruitful  of  unnumbered  woes,  he  was 

"Impiger,  iracundus,  inexorabilis,  acer," — 

but  because  he  was  precisely  the  opposite  of  all  these — peace-loving 
and  placable,  even  to  a  fault.  It  stands  admitted,  that  no  word  of 
his  can  now  be  found  in  all  his  foreign  intercourse,  to  convey  a 
menace  or  reproach.  And  then  his  exalted  benevolence  of  heart — 
his  moderation  in  the  hour  of  victory  the  greatest — the  entire 
absence  of  all  natural  exultation  over  a  fallen  foe — these,  these 
are  confessed  to  be  so  rdfre,  as  to  take  him  out  of  the  roll  of  vulgar 


26 

conquerors,  and  lift  him  high  above  the  ordinary  level  of  humanity. 
It  cost  him  nothing,  however,  to  forgive,  or  even  to  compassionate 
an  enemy.  He  was  indeed  much  better  fitted  for  the  office  of  a 
mediator,  than  the  function  of  a  judge.  It  would  have  wrung  his 
more  than  woman's  heart  to  have  been  compelled  even  to  do  execu- 
tion upon  the  guiltiest  of  the  conspirators,  as  it  did  to  put  his 
name  to  the  warrant  that  consigned  the  spy  or  the  deserter  to 
eternity.  In  thus  according  to  him  the  palm  of  magnanimity — 
which  is  only  another  word  for  greatness  of  soul,  as  its  etymology 
implies — the  highest  eulogy  has  been  pronounced  on  him  that 
human  lips  could  utter.  His  moderation  in  victory  was  but  part 
and  parcel  of  the  same  high  attribute. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten,  while  making  these  admissions,  that 
there  were  other  circumstances  connected  with  this  rebellion,  that 
put  this  high  quality  to  the  severest  proof,  and  rendered  it  im- 
possible to  indulge  a  sentiment  so  elevated  and  ennobling,  without 
great  peril  to  the  general  cause.  Though  war  is,  in  all  its  aspects, 
even  the  most  favorable,  the  direst  scourge  that  Providence  has 
ever  permitted  to  afflict  the  earth,  it  has  no  form  so  hideous  as  the 
intestine  strife  that  arrays  brother  against  brother,  and  arms  the 
father  against  the  son  in  murderous  conflict,  and  doubly  intensifies, 
by  its  very  unnaturalness,  all  the  brutal  and  ferocious  passions  of 
our  fallen  nature.  The  family  quarrel  is  proverbial  for  its  bitter- 
ness, while  the  odium  theologicum  is  the  stereotyped,  but  feeble  ex- 
pression, of  the  rancor  which  has  sometimes  crept  into  the  contro- 
versies of  even  Christian  men.  In  the  present  case,  however,  there 
was  a  feature  superadded  on  the  one  side,  that  lent  ten-fold  ad- 
ditional horror  to  the  contest.  The  institution  of  human  slavery — 
the  prolific  source  of  all  our  woes  —  tracked  into  the  palatial  man- 
sions of  the  lordly  proprietors,  by  a  Nemesis  which  always  follows 
upon  the  heels  of  a  great  wrong — as  though  Providence  intended 
that  Nature  violated  should  always  vindicate  herself — had  expelled 
from  them  every  broad  fraternal  feeling — all  that  recognized  the 
common  brotherhood  of  humanity — and  ended  by  unsexing  the 
women,  and  making  wolves  and  tigers  of  the  men.  All  that  was 
said  of  that  institution,  sometimes  blasphemously  mis-named  divine, 
by  the  author  of  the  great  Declaration  himself,  had  been  already 
realized  in  the  temper  and  condition  of  Southern  society.  To  speak 
of  these  as  barbarous,  in  the  language  of  a  learned  and  eloquent 


27 

New  England  Senator,  was,  in  the  judgment  of  the  more  charitable 
and  fastidious  here,  an  offense  against  good  taste  and  truth,  that 
was  thought  by  them  to  hare  deserved  the  felon  blow  that  proved 
it  to  be  true.  The  picture  drawn  by  him  was  supposed  by  many 
to  be  greatly  over-charged.  How  inadequately  he  portrayed  its 
hideous  aspect,  is  now  seen  in  its  conduct  of  this  devastating  war, 
which  it  has  forced  upon  the  country,  and  under  which  it  has  buried 
itself,  thank  God !  so  deep  that  it  can  produce  no  future  eruption, 
even  by  turning  uneasily  in  its  grave.  Hell  never  engendered 
such  a  monster,  though  "woman  to  the  waist  and  fair"  as  her  who 
sat  as  portress  at  its  gates.  There  is  no  page  of  history  so  dark 
and  damning  as  that  which  will  record  the  fiendish  atrocities  of 
which  it  has  been  guilty,  in  an  age  of  light.  The  manufacture  of 
the  bones  of  Union  soldiers,  left  to  bleach  unburied  on  the  soil 
where  they  fell,  into  personal  ornaments  for  the  delicate  fingers  of 
high-born  Southern  dames,  or  drinking  cups  for  their  chivalrous 
braves — the  mutilation  of  the  corpses  of  the  uncoflined  dead — 
the  cold-blooded  and  systematic  starvation  and  butchery  of  prison- 
ers of  war — the  efforts  to  destroy,  by  wholesale,  rail  road  trains, 
filled  with  innocent  women  and  children — the  employment  of  hired 
incendiaries  to  swing  the  midnight  torch  over  the  spires  of  sleeping 
cities — the  invocation  of  the  pestilential  agencies  of  the  miasma  of 
the  Southern  swamps — and  the  diabolical,  though  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  inoculate  our  seaboard  towns  with  the  deadly  virus  of 
the  plague — all  are  but  episodes  in  the  bloody  drama  that  culmi- 
nated in  the  assassination  of  the  President.  The  cannibal  of  the 
South  Sea  Islands,  and  the  savage  of  the  American  forests,  who 
dances  around  the  blazing  faggots  that  encircle  and  consume  his 
victim,  have  been  over-matched  in  cold-blooded  ingenuity  of  torture, 
by  the  refined  barbarians — the  Davises  and  Lees,  and  other  "honor- 
able and  Christian  "  gentlemen — who  have  inspired  and  conducted 
this  revolt.  God  will  witness  for  the  North,  that  with  all  these  in- 
human provocations,  and  with  a  necessity  that  seemed  almost  in- 
evitable, of  putting  an  end  to  horrors  such  as  these,  by  a  system  of 
just  and  exemplary  retaliation,  it  has  dealt  with  these  great  crimi- 
nals with  a  degree  of  forbearance  that  has  no  example,  and  has  but 
too  often  been  mistaken  by  them  for  want  of  spirit,  and  a  whole- 
some fear  of  their  great  prowess.  When  they  went  out,  they  were 
but  wayward  children,  and  we  entreated  them  kindly.  To  spare 


28 

their  blood,  we  permitted  them  to  envelope  our  defenses  at  Suniter, 
without  resistance,  when  we  could  easily  have  prevented  it.  To 
keep  the  peace  with  them,  we  hesitated  even  to  victual  its  starving 
garrison.  When  we  were  smitten,  we  did  not  even  smite  them  in 
return.  It  was  only  when  they  flung  insult  and  defiance  at  our 
country's  flag,  that  we  felt  our  pulses  quicken,  and  our  blood 
kindling  into  flame.  But  even  then,  we  could  not  fully  realize  that 
they  were  indeed  our  enemies.  Our  camps  were  closed  against 
their  slaves.  Their  officers,  when  captured,  were  treated  with  a' 
distinction  that  made  them  feel  that  they  had  done  no  wrong,  and 
dismissed  on  their  paroles  of  honor,  although  they  had  been  guilty 
of  a  base  desertion  of  our  flag.  Their  men  were  fed  and  clothed, 
and  afterward  exchanged  as  prisoners  of  war.  And  for  much  of 
this  feeling  they  were  indebted  to  the  temper  of  the  President, 
who  held  in  check  the  impetuous  ardor  of  the  North,  and  incurred 
the  risk  of  alienating  his  most  steadfast  friends,  by  a  moderation 
so  unusual  in  stormy  times.  There  was  no  period,  indeed,  in  which 
he  would  not  have  opened  his  arms  to  receive  them  back,  without 
humiliation  to  themselves,  and  with  the  welcome  that  was  accorded 
to  the  repentant  and  returning  prodigal.  His  last  expressions,  in 
regard  to  them  were  kind;  his  last  measures  intended  to  smooth 
the  way  for  their  return.  And  in  recompense  for  all  this,  "with 
wicked  hands  they  slew  him" — their  best  friend — just  when  his 
heart  was  overflowing  with  mercy  and  forgiveness  for  themselves. 
He  had  not  learned — because  his  was  not  a  nature  to  believe — that 
no  kindness  could  soften  or  reclaim  the  leaders  of  this  unholy  re- 
bellion. It  was  not  a  crime  only,  but  a  blunder  the  most  serious  on 
their  part.  Whether  actuated  by  private  malice,  or  stimulated  by 
public  ends,  there  was  no  time  at  which  the  blow  that  struck  him 
down  could  have  been  dealt  with  less  advantage  to  their  cause,  and 
so  little  personal  detriment  to  him.  If  he  had  survived,  he  could 
not,  in  the  course  of  nature,  have  looked  for  many  years  of  life, 
and  might  have  lived  to  disappoint  the  expectations  of  his  friends, 
in  what  would  probably  have  proved  the  most  difficult  part  of  his 
task,  by  a  policy  of  mercy  that  would  have  brought  no  peace. 
The  suppression  of  the  rebellion  was  but  the  first  step  in  the  pro- 
cess of  restoration.  With  the  odds  so  largely  in  our  favor,  there 
could  not  at  any  time  have  existed  any  rational  doubt  as  to  the 
result  of  the  contest,  under  any  rational  direction.  It  was  not  so 


29 

much  the  war,  as  the  peace  which  was  to  follow,  that  was  dreaded 
by  the  wise.  To  suppress  an  armed  rebellion  was  one  thing;  to 
reconstruct  a  government,  resting,  not  on  force,  but  on  co-operative 
wills,  was  another  and  a  higher  task.  The  one  called  only  for 
material  agents;  the  other  demanded  the  ripest  wisdom  of  the 
statesman.  The  sword  was  the  instrument  of  the  former;  a  keen- 
er, subtler,  and  mightier  instrument  was  required  for  the  latter. 
It  is  not  impossible  that  President  Lincoln,  with  all  his  great 
qualities,  might  have  failed  at  this  point.  If  stern  rigor  and  ex- 
emplary justice — if  the  confiscation  of  the  property,  or  the  exile  or 
disfranchisement  of  the  leaders  of  this  wicked  revolt,  the  dark 
assassins  of  our  peace — if  an  absolute  refusal  to  treat  with  those 
miscreants  at  all — were  essential  to  the  permanent  restoration  of 
peace  and  harmony  in  the  land — as  they  are  believed  by  many  men 
to  be — there  was  at  least  room  for  apprehension,  that  the  kind  and 
gentle  spirit,  the  broad,  catholic  charity  of  our  dead  President, 
would  have  unfitted  him  for  the  task.  It  was  a  remark  of  one  of 
the  Greeks,  that  no  man  was  happy,  or  sure  of  posthumous  renown, 
until  the  grave  had  closed  upon  him.  Abraham  Lincoln's  work 
was  done,  and  done  successfully.  He  had  disappointed  nobody  in 
the  Free  States,  except  the  enemies  who  had  hoped  to  rob  him  of 
the  glory,  and  the  country  of  the  advantage  of  finishing  up  a  task, 
which  they  had  prematurely  denounced  as  a  failure.  He  is  now 
beyond  the  reach  of  censure,  or  unfriendly  criticism,  with  his 
record  made  up  for  history — honored  and  lamented  as  no  man  ever 
was  before  him  ;  embalmed  in  the  heart  of  a  nation  that  has  fol- 
lowed him  to  his  tomb ;  doubly  endeared  to  them  by  the  cause  in 
which  he  died — by  his  death  as  well  as  by  his  life ;  and  surrounded 
by  a  halo  that  has  invested  him  with  a  world-wide  fame.  Grieve 
not,  then,  for  him.  The  blow  that  took  him  from  our  arms  was 
but  his  passport  for  immortality.  The  nation  has  lost  a  President, 
but  Abraham  Lincoln  has  won  an  imperishable  crown. 

The  time  is  not  now  to  subject  the  minute  details  of  his  adminis- 
tration to  searching  criticism.  That  men  should  differ  in  regard  to 
this  or  the  other  measure  of  his  policy,  is  not  unreasonable.  It 
was  his  fortune,  as  might  have  been  expected  of  a  cautious  man,  in 
a  revolutionary  era,  to  find  himself  occasionally  at  variance  with 
his  friends,  as  well  as  with  his  enemies.  If  he  was  sometimes  too 
conservative  for  the  former,  he  was  always  too  radical  for  the  latter, 


30 

and  was  sure,  therefore,  to  secure  the  good  will  of  neither  ;  but 
he  yielded  slowly  to  the  indications  of  public  opinion — which  he 
followed  only,  and  did  not  lead — and  was  generally  sure  in  the  end 
to  bring  the  extremes  into  harmony,  by  disappointing  both,  and  to 
find  the  public  mind  prepared  to  approve  his  acts.  He  explored 
his  ground  with  care,  and  having  reached  his  conclusion  at  last  by 
long  and  patient  thought,  he  stood  upon  it  with  a  firmness  that 
nothing  could  shake.  With  him  there  was  no  step  backward. 
Having  once  planted  himself  on  the  ground  of  emancipation,  as  a 
necessity  of  state,  by  a  process  of  laborious  induction,  he  never 
afterward  lost  sight  of  that  object,  and  never  faltered  in  the  execu- 
tion of  his  plans.  Adopted  only  as  a  means,  because  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Union  was  his  only  end,  it  became  at  last  so  far  an  end, 
that  he  refused  even  to  treat  for  that  restoration  upon  any  other 
condition  than  the  absolute  extinction  of  slavery,  to  which  he  now 
stood  pledged  before  the  world.  It  was  partly  because  he  then 
occupied  a  stand-point  that  opened  to  him  a  wider  and  more  com- 
prehensive field  of  vision,  and  enabled  him  to  see  that  the  Union 
could  really  be  saved  upon  no  other  terms  than  those  of  absolute 
justice  to  the  black  man.  The  public  mind  had  ripened  with  his 
own  under  the  torrid  atmosphere  of  revolution.  The  acts  of  his 
administration  are,  however,  to  be  estimated  in  the  light  of  the 
exceeding  novelty,  and  the  great  responsibilities  of  his  position. 
It  is  no  fault  of  his,  even  if  a  bolder  policy  might  have  resulted  in 
earlier  success.  Men  are  always  wise  after  the  fact,  but  in  his 
position,  with  the  fate  of  a  nation  in  his  hands,  there  was  no  place 
for  rash  experiments,  and  he  might  well  decline  to  take  the  risks, 
which  others,  without  responsibility  themselves,  might  have  insisted 
on,  in  opposition  to  the  opinions  of  advisers  who  were  supposed  to 
be  better  schooled  in  the  affairs  of  nations  than  himself. 

And  yet  few  men  have  understood  the  people  better  than 
Abraham  Lincoln.  With  no  advantages  of  education  whatever, 
his  associations  had  been  more  with  men  than  books.  His  thoughts 
and  style  of  expression  all  bear  the  impress  of  that  early  school. 
His  ideas  flowed  in  the  same  channels  as  theirs.  No  man  was 
more  at  home  with  them,  or  better  understood  the  art  of  winning 
their  confidence,  just  because  they  recognized  the  relationship,  and 
felt  that  his  heart  pulsated  in  unison  with  their  own.  His  mind 
and  character  were  indeed  the  natural  growth  of  our  free  institu- 


31 

tions,  and  he  was  so  eminently  a  representative  of  them,  that  no 
other  country  could  have  produced  his  counterpart.  A  higher 
culture  would  only  have  disguised  the  man,  by  paring  down  the 
r^ugh  edges,  and  wearing  away  the  individuality  that  so  much  dis- 
tinguished him.  Condemned  to  wrestle  with  poverty  from  the 
outset,  he  was  indebted,  no  doubt,  for  a  large  share  of  the  robust 
vigor  of  his  genius,  to  that  healthy  development  which  results  from  a 
successful  struggle  with  the  accidents  of  fortune.  Thus  educated,  he 
owed  nothing  of  his  success  in  life  to  the  cultivated  manners,  or  the 
bland  and  insinuating  address  —  the  ready  coin  of  society  —  which 
the  people  are  so  often  willing  to  accept  as  substitutes  for  learning 
and  ability,  and  to  which  so  many  of  our  public  men  are  indebted 
for  their  personal  popularity,  and  their  great  success  in  the  arena 
of  politics.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  man  more  unsymmetrical- 
ly  put  together,  or  more  essentially  awkward  and  ungainly  in  his 
personal  presence.  It  would  be  still  more  difficult  to  find  a  man  so 
free  from  all  pretension,  so  plain,  and  simple,  and  artless  in  his 
manner,  and  with  so  little  apparent  consciousness  of  the  important 
part  that  he  was  enacting,  or  the  great  power  that  he  had  been 
called  upon  to  wield.  The  necessities  of  state  ceremonial — the 
ordeal  of  a  public  reception — were  obviously  the  things  that  he  most 
dreaded  and  disliked.  It  was  impossible  for  one  who  knew  him 
well,  to  look  upon  him  there,  or  in  a  scene  like  that  which  attended 
his  last  inauguration  at  the  Capitol,  surrounded  as  he  was  by  the 
ambassadors  of  all  the  crowned  heads  of  Christendom,  glittering 
in  the  gay  tinsel  and  the  heraldic  insignia  of  their  several  orders, 
with  a  thousand  bright  eyes  directed  from  the  galleries  upon  that 
unassuming  man — himself  the  central  figure  of  the  group — without 
feeling  that  he  was  under  a  constraint  of  posture  that  did  violence 
to  his  nature,  and  was  as  painful  as  it  was  embarrassing.  The  ex- 
pression of  his  countenance,  on  such  occasions,  was  one  of  sadness 
and  abstraction  from  the  scene  around  him — except  when  some 
familiar  face  was  recognized,  and  greeted  in  the  throng  that 
crowded  to  take  him  by  the  hand.  It  was  only  in  the  retirement 
of  his  own  private  audience-chamber  that  the  whole  man  shone 
out,  and  that  he  could  be  said  to  be  truly  himself.  And  there, 
with  a  perfect  abandon  of  manner,  surrendering  himself,  without 
constraint,  to  just  such  posture,  however  grotesque  or  inelegant,  as 
was  most  agreeable  to  himself,  feeling  that  the  eye  of  the  world 


32 

was  no  longer  on  him,  and  forgetting  that  he  was  the  ruler  of  a 
mighty  nation,  at  a  time  of  unexampled  anxiety  and  peril,  his  eye 
and  lip  would  light  up  with  an  expression  of  sweetness  that  was 
ineffable,  while  ho  interested  and  amused  his  auditor,  by  the  ease 
and  freedom  of  his  conversation,  and  the  inexhaustible  fund  of 
anecdote  with  which  he  enriched  his  discourse,  and  so  aptly  and 
strikingly  illustrated  the  topics  that  he  discussed.     They  err  great- 
ly, however,  who  suppose  in  him  any  undue  levity  of  manner,  or 
assign  to  him  the  credit  of  having  been  a  habitual  joker.     If  he 
told  a  story — and  it  was  perhaps  of  his  early  life  and  experience — 
it  either  pointed  a  moral,  or  winged  a  thought  to  the  mark  at  which 
it  was  aimed — and  left  it  there.     He  was  not  long  in  divining  the 
true  characters  of  his  visitors,  and  if  he  indulged  in  pleasantries, 
it  was  either  to  gratify  their  tastes,  or  to  parry  the  impertinences 
to  which  he  was  so  frequently  subjected.     Peculiarities  so  striking 
as  those  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  are  always  singled  out  for  broad 
caricature.     A  common  face  or  character  is  altogether  unfitted  for 
the  purpose.     But  like  many  men  who  have  acquired  a  reputation 
for   sprightliness  and  humor,   the   cast  of  his  mind  was  deeply 
serious.     With  the  grave  and  earnest,  who  came  to  discourse  with 
him  on  important  matters  of  state,  he  was  always  up  to  the  height 
of  that  great  argument ;  and   there  are  few  men  living,  with  his 
imperfect  training,  and  so  little  acquaintance  with  books,  who  can 
express  their  thoughts  with  more  clearness,  or  force,  or  propriety 
of  speech,  than  himself.     He  talked  as  he  wrote,  and  the  world 
knows  with  what  originality,  and  precision,  and  felicity  of  phrase — 
without  a  model  or  a  master — he  dealt  with  the  many  perplexing 
questions  that  were  presented  to  him.     His  style  was  indeed  sui 
generis.     Everything  he  wrote  has  the  marks  of  its  paternity  so 
strongly  impressed  upon  it,  that  the  authorship  cannot  possibly  be 
mistaken.     Nobody  could  imitate  him  ;  "  nobody  but  himself  could 
be  his  parallel."     He  had  much  of  the  genius  of  Swift,  without 
any  of  his  cynicism.     Without  polish  or  elegance,  there  was,  how- 
ever, an  elevation  of  tone — a  vein  of  deep  faith,  and  of  high  re- 
ligious trust,  pervading  some  of  his  state  papers,  and    especially 
his  last  inaugural  address,  that  have  placed  the  latter,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  some  of  the  best  European  scholars,  far  above  the  range 
of  criticism. 

But  his  crowning  attribute — the  one  that  won  for  him  so  large  a 


33  , 

place  in  the  hearts  of  the  people — so  much  more  of  true  affection 
than  has  been  ever  inspired  by  the  exploits  of  the  successful  war- 
rior— was  the  large  humanity  that  dwelt  in  that  gentle  bosom, 
which  knew  no  resentments,  and  was  ever  open  to  the  appeals  of 
suffering.  No  feeling  of  vengeance  ever  found  a  lodgment  there. 
No  stormy  passion  ever  stirred  the  quiet  depths,  or  swept  the  even 
surface  of  his  tranquil  temperament.  No  wife  or  mother,  who  had 
begged  her  way  to  Washington,  to  ask  the  pardon  of  an  erring 
husband,  or  the  discharge  of  a  wounded  or  a  dying  son,  was  ever 
refused  an  audience,  or  ever  retired  from  that  presence  without  in- 
voking Heaven's  choicest  blessings  on  the  head  of  the  good  Presi- 
dent, who  could  refuse  nothing  to  a  woman's  tears.  The  wives  and 
mothers  of  America  have  just  paid  back  the  tribute  of  their  over- 
flowing hearts,  in  the  floods  of  sorrow  with  which  they  have  deluged 
his  grave.  If  he  had  a  weakness,  it  was  here,  but  it  was  such  a 
weakness  as  angels  might  confess,  and  history  will  not  care  to  ex- 
tenuate. That  his  good  nature  was  sometimes  imposed  upon  is  not 
improbable.  For  times  and  places  such  as  his,  a  man  of  sterner 
mould  is  sometimes  absolutely  necessary.  It  is  greatly  to  be 
doubted  whether  that  gentle  heart  could  ever  have  been  persuaded 
to  pronounce  the  deserved  doom  upon  the  guiltiest  of  the  traitors. 
The  crushing  appeal  of  the  wife  and  mother  would  have  melted 
down  his  stoicism,  like  wax  before  the  fire.  His  last  Cabinet  con- 
versation, as  officially  reported  to  us,  was  full  of  tenderness  and 
charity  even  for  the  rebel  general  who  had  abandoned  our  flag,  and 
connived  at  the  butchery  of  our  prisoners.  The  word  was  scarcely 
uttered,  before  the  gates  of  mercy  were  closed  with  impetuous  re- 
coil, and  the  gentle  minister,  who  would  have  flung  them  wide,  was 
removed  forever,  to  give  place  to  the  inexorable  judge.  The  awful 
form  of  Justice  now  appears  upon  the  scene,  to  deal  with  those 
whom  mercy  could  not  mollify,  while  a  world  does  homage  to  the 
great  heart  that  is  forever  at  rest. 

Yes  !  Abraham  Lincoln  rests.  "After  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps 
well."  His  work  on  earth  is  done.  No  couch  of  roses,  no  bed  of 
luxurious  down  was  that  which  pillowed  his  aching  head,  during  the 
four  eventful  years  of  his  public  ministry.  No  doubt  his  worn  and 
jaded  spirit  panted  for  repose.  He  must  have  felt,  as  the  clouds 
lifted  around  him,  and  the  horizon  of  the  future  was  all  aglow  with 

3 


34 

the  splendors  of  the  coming  day,  that  he  was  about  to  enter  on  the 
full  fruition  of  his  long  cherished  hopes  of  a  ransomed  and  re- 
united land.     He  had  already  scaled  a  height,  from  which  the  eye 
of  faith  might  sweep  the  boundless  panorama  of  a  happy  conti- 
nent, lapt  in  the  repose  of  universal  brotherhood — its  brown  forests 
and  gold-bearing  mountains  bathed  in  the  tranquil  sunshine,  and 
sleeping  in  the  quiet  solitude  of  nature — its  lakes  and  rivers  alive 
with  the  glancing  keels  of  an  abundant  and  industrious  commerce 
— its  plains  dimpling  with  golden  harvests — and  the  tall  spires  of 
its  multitudinous  cities,  the  resorts  of  traffic,  and  the  homes  of 
learning  and  the  mechanic  arts,  pointing  to  the  skies.     But  it  was 
not  his  fate  to  enter  into  that  rest  which  such  a  vision  might  have 
foreshadowed.     Another  and  a  more  enduring,  was  to  receive  him 
into  its  cold  embrace.     He  dies  unconscious — without  warning,  and 
without  a  struggle — in  the  very  hour  of  his  triumph — in  no  darkened 
chamber — tossed  by  no  agonies  on    an    uneasy  couch — with  no 
lamentations  and  no  wail  of  woe — no  harrowing,  heart-breaking 
farewells — to  disturb  his  spirit  in  its  heavenward  flight ;  but  by  an 
unseen  hand — in  a  moment  of  respite  from  corroding  care — and  in 
the  presence  of  the  people  whom  he  loved.      With  so  little  to  fear, 
he  could  not  have  made  a  happier  exodus.     How  marked  the  con- 
trast between  his  own  last  hours,  and  the  last  of  the  public  life  of 
the  rebel  chief,  whose  wicked  counsels  have  either  inspired  the  blow, 
or  strengthened  the  hand  that  reached  his  life :  Abraham  Lincoln, 
who  never  injured  a  human  being,  dying  at  the  capital,  in  the  hour 
of  his  triumph,  with   no   rancor   in  his  heart,  and  nothing  but 
charity  and  forgiveness  for  his  enemies  upon  his  lips — and  Jeffer- 
son  Davis,  with  the  blood  of  half  a  million  of  people  on  his  hands, 
flying  like  a  thief  in  the  night  through  the  swamps  of  Georgia,  and 
captured  in  the  disguise  of  a  woman,  without  even  one  manly  effort 
at  resistance  !     It  had  been  better  for  his  fame,  if  he  had  died  too, 
even  as  he  had  lived.     The  genius  of  Milton  almost  flags  under  the 
sublime  story  of  the  flight  and  fall  of  the  apostate  archangel,  when 
conquered  but  not  dismayed,  he  plunged  over  the  crystal  battle- 
ments of  heaven,   "with  hideous  ruin  and  combustion  down,"  till 
startled  Chaos  shook  through  his  wild  anarchy.     It  was  reserved 
for  the  guilty  leader  of  this  not  less  infamous  revolt,  to  find  even 
a  lower  deep,  where  the  dignity  of  the  epic  muse  can  never  reach 
him. 


35 

Rest  then,  honored  shade !  spirit  of  the  gentle  Lincoln,  rest ! 
No  stain  of  innocent  blood  is  on  thy  hand.     No  widow's  tear — no 
orphan's  wail  shall  ever  trouble  thy  repose.    No  agonizing  struggle, 
between  the  conflicting  claims  of  mercy  and  of  justice,  shall  afflict 
thee  more.     Thou  hast  but  gone  to  swell  the  long  procession  of 
that  noble  army  of  martyrs,   who  left  their  places  vacant  at  the 
family  board,  to  perish  for  the  faith  in  Southern  dungeons,  or  to 
leave  their  bones  unburied,  or  ridge  with  countless  graves  the  soil 
that  they  have  won  and  watered  with  their  blood.     Though  lost  to 
us,  thou  art  not  lost  to  memory.     The  benefactors  of  mankind  live 
on  beyond  the  grave.     For  thee,  death  ushers  in  the  life  that  will 
not   die.     Thy  deeds  shall  not  die  with  thee,  nor  the  cause  or 
nation,  which  was  aimed  at  in  the  mortal  blow  that  laid  thee  low. 
What  though  no  sculptured  column  shall  arise  to  mark  thy  sepul- 
chre, and  proclaim  to  future  times  the  broad  humanity — the  true 
nobility  of  soul — the  moderation  in  success — that,  by  the  confession 
of  his  harshest  critics,  have  crowned  the  untutored  and  unpretend- 
ing child  of  the  prairies,  as  the  "King  of  men?"     What  though 
the  quiet  woodland  cemetery  that  shelters  thy  remains,  and  woos 
the  pilgrim  to  its  leafy  shades,  shall  show  no  costly  cenotaph — no 
offerings  save  those  which  the  hand  of  affection  plants,  or  that  of 
nature  sheds  upon  the  hallowed  mound  that  marks  thy  resting 
place  ?     What  though  the  muse  of  history,  who  registers  thy  acts, 
and  inscribes  thee  high  among  the  favored  few,  to  whom  God  has 
given  the  privilege  of  promoting  the  happiness  of  their  kind,  should 
fail  to  record  the  quiet  and  unobtrusive  virtues  that  cluster  round 
the  hearth  and  heart,  and  shrink  from  the  glare  of  day  ?      There 
is  a  chronicler  more  faithful,  that  will  take  thy  story  up  where  his- 
tory may  leave  it.     The  pen  of  the  Recording  Angel  will  write  it 
in  the  chancery  of  Heaven,  while  the  lips  of  childhood  will  be 
taught  to  repeat  the  tragic  tale,   until  memory  shall  mellow  into 
the  golden  light  of  tradition,  and  poesy  shall  claim  thy  story  for 
its  theme.     But  long  ere  this — even  now  in  our  own  day  and  gen- 
eration— the  cotton  fields  and  the  rice  swamps  of  the  South  will 
be  vocal  with  thy  praise,  while  the  voice  of  the  emancipated  white 
man  shall  swell  the  choral  harmony  that  ascends  from  the  lips  of 
the  dusky  child  of  the  tropics,  as  he  lightens  his  daily  toil — now 
sweet  because  no  longer  unrequited — by  extemporizing  his  simple 
gratitude  in  unpremeditated  lays,  in  honor  of  the  good  President 


36 

who  died  to  make  him  free.  The  mightiest  potentates  of  earth 
have  labored  vainly  to  secure  a  place  in  the  memories  and  the  re- 
gards of  men,  by  dazzling  exhibitions  of  their  power  to  enslave. 
Both  Memphian  and  Assyrian  kings,  whose  very  names  had  perished 
but  for  the  researches  of  the  learned,  have  sought  to  perpetuate 
their  deeds  and  glory  in  the  rock  tombs  of  the  Nile,  and  the  un- 
buried  bas-reliefs  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  covered  with  long 
trains  of  sorrowing  captives,  manacled  and  bound,  and  dragged 
along  to  swell  the  victors'  triumphs,  or,  perhaps,  as  votive  offerings 
to  the  temples  of  their  bestial  gods.  It  was  reserved  for  thee  to 
find  a  surer  road  to  fame,  by  no  parade  of  conquest.  No  mournful 
train  of  miserable  thralls  either  graces  or  degrades  thy  triumph. 
The  subjugated  are  made  free,  and  the  hereditary  bondsmen  drops 
his  galling  chain,  and  feels  that  he  is  once  more  a  man.  If  the 
genius  of  sculpture  should  seek  to  preserve  thy  name,  it  will  pre- 
sent thee,  lifting  from  their  abject  posture,  and  leading  by  the  hand, 
with  gentle  solicitation,  the  enfranchised  millions  of  a  subject  race, 
and  laying  down  their  fetters,  as  a  free-will  offering,  upon  the  altars 
of  that  God  who  is  the  common  Father  of  mankind. 


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